Synthesis And Gap Essay

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Synthesis and Gaps The campaign against crime is a continuing concern. It is a war that the police cannot win alone. Police cannot change the ”root drivers” of crime such as poverty, freedom, unemployment, dysfunctional families, poor housing, moral education, ambitions, civil liberties, and other ills of socio-economic opportunities. Thus, all characteristics of police work should be premised upon active community consent, trust, and participation. In his study, Howell (2009) stated that crime rate is major statistical tool utilized by every faction of law enforcement. It gives a picture of how crime is either growing or slowing down in particular areas. It also details which crime is committed in and by whom, using several factors such …show more content…

Consequently, there has been widespread interest in the measurement of police performance using traditional crime indicators. Although useful for a specific purpose, these indicators of performance do not attempt to gauge in a meaningful way the customer satisfaction with the quality of police service or the quality of police-community partnerships. (Rosenbaum, 2004) A big issue is raised regarding evaluation of police performance due to the fact that there is no agreement on what effective policing means and implies. Whereas, fluctuations in crime rates have traditionally been used by the media and politicians to evaluate police performance, criminologists and police scholars, have raised questions about the appropriateness of this common sense practice (Bayley, 1994). Research firmly shows that social, demographic and economic forces determine the bulk of aggressive crime rates. Therefore, it becomes unjustifiable to treat crime levels as indicators of police effectiveness, particularly when police-related variables are at best very weakly related to crime rates in emperical studies. Despite the researches made on police performance accumulated in the past 30 years, the definition and thus the correct assessment of effective policing remains nebulous and intensely contested (Reiner,

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